Pages

Thursday, April 12, 2012

More Raab

Another beautiful and slightly bigger than expected share today. I shrunk the CSA this year by 1/3 in order to give Kji at Edible Horizons a bit more space for his project. One of the consequences is that I'm harvesting from a few overwintered crops that are in planting sizes for a larger CSA, which is temporarily beefing up the shares. Kind of nice.

Today's share has two beautiful green garlics (tinged with red), a small bunch of Hakurei turnips, a small bunch of very large Pink Beauty radishes, and raab from kale and brussels sprouts. The green garlic can be used like green onions, but be warned, it's powerful stuff. It also goes nicely just about anywhere you'd use garlic cloves, and you can use the entire plant. You can also use the entire turnip plant. The roots are incredibly sweet and tender, great raw in salad, or you can cook them. The greens are best cooked. The same goes for the radish, although those roots have a bit of a bite to them, a mild bite, but it's noticeable. With last week's radish greens and raab I sautéed each lightly until their own juices were pretty much gone, and then baked them in a phyllo pie, all mixed up. I didn't even use any cheese, although that could have been nice. Phyllo might sound intimidating but you buy it in the freezer section of the grocery and follow the directions, which are very simple. I also had raab chopped up and sautéed and then mixed into pasta with tomato sauce. A little green garlic in there would be great too, maybe even a green garlic pesto.

Today is the day I run the shares to town by bike. I've actually completed almost half of the 37 miles at this point (and the electric assist battery is half discharged after some nasty headwinds and the hill up the St. John's bridge). As I write I'm dropping the shares on my porch in St. Johns before making the final run into town. I left the farm early to make sure I have enough time. I did manage to hoe the garlic and onions before I took off though. I'll give a longer review of the bike soon - I'm super excited about it and getting to test it out for a week has been incredibly educational.

Glad you like them! They are so good cooked that way. I don't think enough people think of cooking radishes. Do try the Hakurei turnips raw as well, early spring they seem to be at the peak of their sweetness. I'm hoping we'll have more next week.